I thought I'd update this thread with the conclusion of this issue for the sake of others who may encounter a similar one. I ended up chatting with two separate agents who were incredibly helpful and understood that the buyer made the initial error by suggesting the product was faulty when submitting the return, when it clearly wasn't. Because I accepted their claim though, an agent recommended to contact them directly and suggested sending them the funds by bank transfer for the return postage, wait for the item to return to me for inspection, then they can close the order and refund both parties. Unfortunately, the buyer did not respond to my request and after a few days, they closed the return request themselves. Thankfully though, the full item price and postage cost were paid out to me, so it was treated like a regular sale in the end. So, these situations don't always fall into the buyer's favour as people claim, eBay's agents are very critical of individual issues it seems and will do the right thing. Thanks again to everyone in this thread for the initial help.